Four years after the Bush administration
duped Americans into believing that Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in
the al Qaeda terrorist attacks that rocked the United States on 9/11, Bush
administration officials -- prodded by Israel -- are now asking Americans
to believe that Iran either has the bomb or is vigorously pursuing it.

As former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter
put it in his recent book
Target Iran, "the last thing the Bush administration wanted was to
have the U.S. public pondering the possibility that Iran might not, after
all, be pursuing a nuclear weapons program, but rather only a peaceful
nuclear energy program." [p. 145]

But, thanks to lies and deceit by Iran, as
well as unsubstantiated allegations by the Bush administration and Israel,
Iran's very attempt to exercise its legal rights to the nuclear fuel cycle
under Article 4 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is now viewed as
proof of intent to build the bomb. Thus, for both Israel and the US,
Iran's exercise of its Article 4 rights -- which has the overwhelming
support of its citizens -- has become a reason for war.

Recall that the Bush administration "took
the lead in arguing that Iran, as a leading producer of oil, had no
justifiable economic explanation for its nuclear program, further
reinforcing the conclusion by Washington D.C. that the program was a cover
for nuclear weapons acquisition." [p. 71] Strangely, the Bush
administration seems to have forgotten that both the Nixon and Ford
administrations "approved the Shah's plans for both uranium-enrichment
facilities and plutonium reprocessing plants." (Joseph Cirincione, "The
Clock's Ticking: Stopping Iran Before It's Too Late," Arms Control
Today, Nov. 2006)

Strangely? Yes, because "the approval
process then included several officials who have advised President George
W. Bush on Iran" [Ibid], Messrs. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and
Kissinger.

And, as Ray McGovern has recently written:
"In 1976, Ford reluctantly signed a directive offering Iran a deal that
would have brought at least $5.4 billion for U.S. corporations like
Westinghouse and General electric, had not the Shah been unceremoniously
ousted three years later. The offer included a reprocessing facility for a
complete nuclear-fuels cycle -- essentially the same capability that the
United States, Israel and other countries now insist Iran cannot be
allowed to acquire." (Ray McGovern, "Wake Up! The Next War is Coming,"
TomPaine.com, Feb. 12, 2007)

In addition, John Bolton -- the obnoxious
right-wing ideologue and anti-U.N. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., whose
appointment Congress wisely refused to ratify -- lied, when he asserted:
"There's no doubt that for close to 20 years, the Iranians have been
pursuing nuclear weapons through a clandestine program that we've
uncovered." [Ritter p. 188] In fact, there is plenty of doubt.

In fact, we are still awaiting conclusive
evidence that Shah Reza Pahlavi began a secret nuclear weapons program,
which was then continued by the leaders of Iran's Islamic Republic during
the years of the Iran-Iraq war and which continues to this day. Instead,
we have the 2005 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which not only
concludes that "Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key
ingredient for a nuclear weapon," but also that there is "no information
linking" clandestine work by Iran's military "directly to a nuclear
weapons program." (Dafna Linzer, "Iran Is Judged 10 Years From Nuclear
Bomb," Washington Post.com, Aug. 2, 2005)

And, instead, on February 27, 2006, we found
Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the Director General of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) reasserting conclusions he had reached in November
2004: (1) "All the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted
for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited
activities," and (2) "The Agency is, however, not yet in a position to
conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in
Iran." (Ritter, p. 158, p. 189)

Thus, when one considers that the IAEA's
inspections in Iran constitute "some of the most intrusive inspections in
the history of nuclear arms control," (Ibid, p. 102) there are plenty of
reasons to doubt the assertions made by the Bush administration.

However, given the fact that Iran has
frequently deceived and lied to the IAEA -- initially about the very
existence of its nuclear program and subsequently about specific elements
-- no prudent person would accept on faith Iranian claims about its
peaceful nature. But neither does previous deceit prove US assertions
"that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons capability, one that operates
outside the bounds of the IAEA weapons inspections." (p, 199)

Thus, we must reject as unproven, claims
made by John Bolton, "echoing similar charges made by Israel that Iran has
already enriched enough uranium to make several nuclear weapons." [Ibid]
Simply recall that it was Bolton, whom the Israeli Ambassador to the U.N.,
Dan Gillerman, called "the sixth Israeli diplomat assigned to the United
Nations," (p. 208) He's joined at the hip with Israel.

Neither should we believe US Under Secretary
of State, Nicholas Burns, when he makes the unsupported assertion that
"there is no doubt that Iran is actively pursuing nuclear weapons."

Thus, lest the Bush administration dupe us
into war yet again, Americans, the news media and the Congress must demand
hard evidence. We must insist that the new NIE on Iran be completed
expeditiously and critically examined. And, until it is, we should keep in
mind that Senator Jay Rockefeller -- who now heads the Senate Intelligence
Committee that will examine the anticipated NIE and who has access to
classified intelligence -- recently asserted that there "is little
evidence corroborating the accusations that Iran is proliferating nuclear
weapons." (Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, "Debunking Iran's nuclear myth makers,"
Asia Times Jan. 27, 2007)

Israel's role in attempting to prod the US
to attack Iran has been considerable and is a major theme of Ritter's
book. Indeed, Israeli intelligence has provided both the United States and
the IAEA with accurate intelligence about elements of Iran's nuclear
program, but it has not found evidence to prove the existence of Iran's
nuclear weapons program.

Moreover, there's more than an ounce of
hypocrisy in Israel's behavior. For, as ElBaradei noted in August 2004,
Iran has been "much more forthcoming and cooperative about its nuclear
program than Israel ever had." (p. 133)

Yet, given the suspicions of Israel and the
US, as well as the pressure they have exerted on the IAEA, Iran (like
Iraq) increasingly faces demands to prove a negative -- prove that it is
not pursuing an undisclosed nuclear weapons program. Such pressure by
Israel and the US leads Ritter to suspect that a "disingenuous commitment
to arms control and disarmament" is but a smokescreen for regime change.
(p. xxvi)

A commitment to regime change would explain
why the Bush administration dismissed significant overtures from Iran in
2003 and had Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, lie about such
overtures just last week. According to Ari Berman, "In May 2003, Iran
faxed a letter to the State Department, via the Swiss ambassador to Iran,
proposing a sweeping realignment in US-Iranian relations. Iran offered
'full transparency' on its nuclear enrichment program, to take 'decisive
action against any terrorists (above all Al Qaeda) on Iranian territory,'
to help stabilize Iraq and establish democratic institutions there, to
disarm Hezbollah, to stop 'material support to Palestinian opposition
groups,' and accept a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.

In exchange, the Iranian government asked
the US government to foreswear regime change, abolish sanctions, crack
down on the terrorist group MEK and allow Iran to develop peaceful nuclear
technology." (Ari Berman, "Is the Bush Administration Lying About Iran?"
BLOG The Nation 2/14/2007)

A commitment to regime change also would
explain why the US has been conducting secret operations inside Iran, why
a second aircraft carrier group is sailing to the Persian Gulf, why
minesweepers were sent there in late 2006, and why Bush has also ordered
Patriot missile batteries to the region. Patriot missiles are of no use in
Iraq, but could be employed against retaliatory strikes by Iranian
ballistic missiles and aircraft.

Although the Bush administration denies that
it plans to go to war, Israel is more candid. On February 12, 2007, an
Israeli cabinet minister warned that Israel might decide on its own to
confront Iran in order to halt its alleged nuclear weapons program.
Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman said "Israel cannot remain
with its arms folded, waiting patiently for Iran to develop
non-conventional weapons." ("IAEA Chief El Baradei Warns Against Military
Action Against Iran," Democracy Now, Feb. 13, 2007)

Granted, if any state can recognize lies and
deceit when it comes to secret bomb making, it's probably Israel -- a
state that obtained its bomb through such lies and deceit. Nevertheless,
ElBaradei exposed both the warmongering and regime change nature of
Lieberman's warning when he responded: "I don't see a military solution of
the Iranian issue. First of all, as far as we know what Iran has now today
is the knowledge. We do not know that Iran has the industrial capacity to
enrich uranium. We don't know, we haven't seen indication or concrete
proof of a nuclear weapons program. So I don't see that people talk about
a military solution. I don't know what they mean by that. You cannot bomb
knowledge, as I said before. I think it would also be completely counter
productive." (Ibid)

Lost in all of this US-Israeli saber
rattling is the gross hypocrisy of both countries. ElBaradei put his
finger on it when he asserted: "We must abandon the unworkable notion that
it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass
destruction, yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for
security -- and indeed continue to refine their capacities and postulate
plans for their use." (Ritter, p. 179)

Mikhail Gorbachev recently made a similar
observation, when he called for the abolition of nuclear weapons. He noted
that, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, "nations that are
capable of making nuclear weapons shall forego that possibility in
exchange for the promise by the members of the nuclear club to reduce and
eventually abolish their nuclear arsenals. If this reciprocity is not
observed, then the entire the structure of the treaty will collapse."
(Mikhail Gorbachev, "The Nuclear Threat," Wall Street Journal, Jan.
31, 2007)

Would that collapse please the
treaty-trashing Bush administration and the NPT-refusnik Israelis? Perhaps
not. Both have shown a willingness to use the NPT to bind OTHER countries.
Yet, when it comes to Iran's nuclear program, even the NPT -- especially
its Article 4 provisions -- are viewed as far too permissive.

Moreover, precisely because the Bush
administration and Israel respectively violate and ignore the NPT when
they refine or build new nuclear weapons, their very plans to launch
preventive military strikes (including nuclear strikes) against merely
suspicious nuclear programs only amplify their hypocrisy. Simply recall
how wrong both Israel and the Bush administration were about Iraq's
suspicious nuclear weapons program -- before America's invasion.

Finally, not only do such plans for
preventive attacks amplify the nuclear hypocrisy of Israel and the United
States, such plans also suggest that regime change hides behind their
phony nonproliferation rhetoric. But, worst of all, such plans guarantee
that other states will seek to deter future preventive attacks by secretly
developing their own nuclear weapons. As an Indian Army chief of staff
once observed, "if you think you might someday be opposed by the United
States, you'd better get a nuclear weapon."

Walter C. Uhler
is an independent scholar and freelance writer whose work has been
published in numerous publications, including The Nation, the
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Journal of Military History,
the Moscow Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. He also is
President of the Russian-American International Studies Association (RAISA).
He can be reached at:
waltuhler@aol.com.